Screen Resolution Issue

[thefenderbender]

Hi,

I am using Linux 20.1 (Linux Mint 20.1 “Ulyssa” Cinnamon Edition) which is up-to-date. I have had this (not a new installation) for sometime and it has been upgraded since its initial install version 19.x.

Till this morning everything was fine tho when I tried to boot this morning it somehow blinked in the start up screen (with BIOS / Motherboard manufacturer logo) and poped a "huge" login screen - 1024x768. I assumed it would fix itself when I logged in my user session but nothing. It was still massive. So went to my display settings and tried to tweak it from there but the monitor was not recognised and the default resolution of the monitor (1920x1080) was not even listed in the pull down menu.

I did some digging and found out the following link:

https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/877

Basically it is showing (1) how to create a newmode with the required resolution (in my case 1920x1080) and (2) how to add it as new mode.

(BTW; I did not follow up the rest of the solution in the above link - which entails creating X Conf file etc.)

When I did this it solved my problem; this has to be done at every boot. I have made script of this so it executes every time I boot but still this is a very palliative solution.

I am going back in my mind to check what I could have done to cause this and only thing that I can think of is:
- 3 days ago I updated the kernel that had been pushed
- Yesterday I removed two old kernels. (the most recent and the one before that is still there as the computer still boots/works with the latest kernel).

I would appreciate if you have any ideas. Thank you in advance.

[1000]

1. Check EDID. Broken monitor don't have EDID so don't know what monitor and what resolutions are possible.

Code: Select all

 sudo get-edid | parse-edid

For example this guy have hardware "Switch" which does not transmit information about the monitor to all his computers.
And this guy must also configure the resolution manually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO3IXFmE_uo
On this video in min. 15:38 he use 3 commands
" xrandr new mode ... "
" xrandr addmode ... "
" xrandr --output ... "
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution

2. So if not will EDID you can check
- with different monitor
- if you use adapter , you can check with different adapter
- with different wire
- with different graphic card
- you can check EDID with system from live CD / live USB

============
Typo corrected

[AndyMH]

Timeshift restore?

[SMG]

I am going back in my mind to check what I could have done to cause this and only thing that I can think of is:
- 3 days ago I updated the kernel that had been pushed
- Yesterday I removed two old kernels. (the most recent and the one before that is still there as the computer still boots/works with the latest kernel).

The drivers for AMD graphics and Intel graphics are in the kernel. To get proper help, we would need to know more about your system.

Please give us information about your install by entering this command in a terminal: inxi -Fxxxrz
Click </> from the mini toolbar above the textbox where you type your reply and then place your cursor between the code markers and paste the results of the command between the code markers [code]Results[/code]. This will let us know how Mint sees your hardware.

The easiest way to restore your system is to restore to a Timeshift snapshot as AndyMH has suggested.

A second suggestion is to boot into grub and select an older installed kernel to see if the problem resolves.

[thefenderbender]

First of all, thank you (@SMG @AndyHM and @1000) for your responses to my initial message. After couple of boot ups now the screen is recognized and does not need the script that I was using before. It came back to normal later that day.

Tho I wasn't sure whether it would last and what changed back again. Hence, I delayed my response. Two days and 4-5 boot ups later, I can say that it is just fine. However, I am still clueless of what is/was the root cause of it. To be honest, it still bothers me.

Maybe it was just a cable issue; VGA plug loose but somehow it was sending data and not the EDID info. For the time being that is the reason I am inclined to believe.

@SGM
I am not sure whether it makes any sense since the system is already recognizing the monitor but, in any case, I am sharing below the output that you requested.

Thanks again and stay well.

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-70-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 4.8.6 wm: muffin 4.8.1 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: H110M-D v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: American Megatrends v: 3601 date: 12/12/2017 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-7700K bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake rev: 9 L1 cache: 256 KiB L2 cache: 8192 KiB 
  L3 cache: 8192 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 67200 
  Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4500 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 
  3: 800 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800 7: 802 8: 800 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 630 vendor: ASUSTeK driver: i915 v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:5912 
  Display: server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 630 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.6 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:a170 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-70-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: ASUSTeK driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
  chip ID: 10e 
  IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Ralink MT7601U Wireless Adapter type: USB driver: mt7601u 
  bus ID: 1-10:4 chip ID: 14 serial: <filter> 
  IF: wlx20e217 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 577.56 GiB used: 83.34 GiB (14.4%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: SanDisk model: SDSSDH3500G size: 465.76 GiB 
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 70RL temp: 32 C scheme: MBR 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: SanDisk model: SSD PLUS 120 GB size: 111.80 GiB 
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 00RL temp: 35 C 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 214.98 GiB used: 83.33 GiB (38.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3 
  ID-2: swap-1 size: 15.62 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 

[SMG]

It came back to normal later that day.

If you did nothing, it could be cable related. I've been on threads where a slight bump on one connection end was enough to create a black screen and prompt several days of investigation for what could have happened in Mint only to find out the issue was hardware connections.

Some people with Intel HD Graphics 630 have seen better performance with the 5.8 kernel which is available in Update Manager, but if you are not seeing any issues then stay with the 5.4 LTS kernel.

I do not see anything in your data which might suggest what happened unless for some reason the graphics driver did not install from the kernel (which has happened a few odd times, but usually on initial install). If the situation which prompted this thread ever returns, check the results of inxi -Gxx to verify the data matches what I put in blue (which indicates the driver appears to be installed properly).

Graphics:
Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 630 vendor: ASUSTeK driver: i915 v: kernel
bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:5912
Display: server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 630 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.6
direct render: Yes